Public art has to do with expressing the evolution over time of topics such as technology, science, or just art in general. In Doss’s claims, “public art is as diverse as the people who view it” (Doss 1). This reveals that there are many controversies on public art because everyone views it differently. The controversies about public art were mainly presented in either cultural or historical views. “Public art controversy can be used as a tool that enhances community awareness and civic life”. I feel that this statement is absolutely true because public art is for all eyes to see and for them to have their own perspective on the evolution of different things.

The two Runquist murals in the Knight Library show the development of sciences and the development of arts. Overtime, people have been influenced by these murals by the evolution of the human progression of arts and sciences. Since this is found in the library, students get inspired that there is yet to be more innovation, industrious ideas and different types of art that can be made to keep on building the evolution. “Public art includes sculptures, murals, memorials, monuments, civic gateways, pocket parks, playgrounds, and outdoor performances” (Doss 2), so any student can be creative and develop new public art for everyone to look at, just like the Runquist brothers.

There are many different types of public art around the world, depending on where you go, it would sometimes relate. For example, whenever I go to Chinatown in Portland, Oregon, I see Asian public art with Chinese symbols and their exquisite architecture and art. This helps people who visit Chinatown get the feel of a place with authentic Chinese spirit. Moreover, this type of example gives people a spark of identity when they’re there, looking at the public art that they show people. It is mainly cultural and there are some historic art pieces in stores or restaurants that show past historic events that have happened in China.

Moreover, the source of controversy is “diverse and often competing self-interest [that] view public art as a direct extension of their particular cause” (Doss). Different groups want to see different things, and with many voices competing, it’s quite easy to see why it took so long to build the Washington Monument. Doss uses the example of the Memorial of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It isn’t possible to accommodate every interest group without taking away the original purpose of the artwork. During the Great Depression, Teddy Roosevelt made up the New Deal which is a very important historic event that needed to be put up in public art—the Washington Monument so that people can always remember the good deeds that Roosevelt did for people.

My relationship of my values to these issues is that it relates to the community, personal accomplishment and through creativity. Since public art has to do with putting art in the community and/or in a public area for the community to see, my value to community is pretty high in my list of values because I like helping out in the community, and letting others have art to be inspired by. Also, personal accomplishment is a huge value in public art. For example, FDR had a public art put up in Washington about himself because he had a personal accomplishment to show off to everyone, and for people to acknowledge. It takes a lot of creativity to come up with public arts such as the Runquist brothers’ murals.

Works-cited

Doss, Erica. Public Art Controversy: Cultural Expression and Civic Debate. American for the Arts, October 2006. Print.

Creativity

Imagination

Focus

Diversity

Precision

Religion

Technology

History

Uniqueness

Perspective

In this week’s reading, all I could think about it was how websites were made. Especially those sites for social networking, those creators who have created Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. This made me think about how they could start out by not knowing anything about creating a website- to being amateur on the topic of it. Lessig stated that there are two different kinds of cultures. RO who are ‘fueled by professionals’, and RW who are both professional and amateur. The author claims, “Creating is a responsibility. Only by practicing it can you learn it” (Lessig 87). The question that boggles my mind, is if people  think only professionals (RO) are those who can create such large corporation simply by practicing it from being completely clueless on the topic, or do they hire real professionals to make the site for them? What do you think and how do you think they learn the practice?

Beverly Jones, the author of “Computer Graphics: Effects of Origins” writes a very compelling article on the innovation of art and technology. Her primary thesis,

“Those who originate and use new forms of art and technology embed their assumptions in the new symbolic and material forms. As time passes the users develop familiarity and facility. New users bring additional assumptions and considerations of form, content, material, technique, meaning and purpose. However, some traces of the origins and practices remain in these forms, which consequently contribute to both cultural maintenance and change. Cultural patterns are affected in proportion to the spread in the use of these forms.” (Jones 51).

In other words, she means that technology has advanced from the past, thus creating technological innovations to the present and future. As a historic example, Jones refers to Duane Palyka’s works. Ever since computer graphics were made, inventors found large complements to the images; since then, “images were done by engineers and technicians employed by the government” (Jones 53). Palyka was a normal user who began to make ‘computer painting’ popular and used computers to express the new art form, where “alphanumeric printer output for designing two-dimensional artworks was based on variables in the programming” (Jones 53). Computers not only are an advancement from the evolution of technology, but it’s art as well.

One of the current examples of Jones’ thesis is brought by video games that require motion and an active body to play. These exercising games, such as Just Dance, is a revolution that is both entertaining and is a great workout to do. This innovation is helping people burn calories while having fun at home, without having to go the gym. Video game systems like the Wii or the Xbox kinect is one of the most innovative technologies of all time because they include motion control remotes that require people to move and get active. The new innovation to technologies is that it has now all evolved to a combination of gaming, technology and fitness into games which support a very healthy lifestyle.

Sources:

“DUANE M. PALYKA.” Artist and Computer –. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 May 2013.

Lewis, H. (1990). A Question of Values: Six Ways We Make the Personal Choices That Shape Our Lives. Axios Press.

Technology has taken over so many of people’s lives, especially from gaming. McGonigal says that our population’s “gamers are super-powerful hopeful individuals”. In the online world, gamers get so determined to win and to work hard to achieve their goal. Most online games have to do with strategy and survival. Do you think gamers can come out of the virtual world and make real-life contributions to the good of the real world such as survival or situations that happen in the daily life?

My definition of spirituality deals with the connection between religion and the human mind. Usually spirituality would occur for your eyes only, it’s usually something that no one else can see. I remember in the show, Avatar the Last Airbender, the main character was always went through spirituality because he was the only person who could go into a different state of mind than others. Often times, spirituality can undergo decision making by the influence from the unearthly connections.

Spirituality does differ from religion because there are religious organizations that people go to, such as a church or a temple to learn more about religion. There is usually a pastor or a monk that will guide everyone to the same path of spirituality. This makes religion really organized and structural in which the directors lead you to a specific spirituality. But spirituality should be in the state of mind where no one can see the same things you can, and it’s your own pathway in what you want to believe in.

Creativity is when something is thought outside of the box. It is always different than everyone else’s idea of creativity because it usually is original and unique. But in this case, creativity is the ability to see things differently by coming from a different perspective. Everyone has the capability to be creative because they all come in different sources. Most creativity comes from spirituality because spirituality influences a lot of things.

The source of creativity usually is from artists and musicians who get it from spirituality as said before. A great example of creativity from musicians come from Church songs or songs about Jesus. They get their inspiration from religion. As for artists, they get their ideas based on symbols of what they believe in, such as a cross for Jesus, or by painting their own ‘heaven’ on a canvas to show that they believe in God and that there is a heaven. Overall, creativity comes from what people believe in.

Deeply seeing by Grey reveals that there is a vast difference between looking and seeing. In the text, seeing is actually the recognition of meaning, “No wonder that once the art of seeing is lost, Meaning is lost, and all of life seems ever more meaningless: “They know not what they do, for they do not see what they look at” (Grey 73). By this quote, Grey means that seeing some spiritually must only focus on the art of seeing itself, and not by focusing on the meaning or anything else.

Artists look for three things in art and they are things “that are need for beauty: integritas (wholeness), consonantia (harmony), and claritas (radiance)” (Grey). These three concepts can be recognized as the artists’ “three eyes of knowing, which are used to examine the spiritual beauty”. As the article goes on, Grey describes more about the creative processes and how spirituality can play a huge role in artist, especially inspiration because spirituality can influence an artist’s artwork. In his case, Grey’s art came to him in visions of grander. Little visions he sketches in a book and makes complete later. “In order to experience art fully, viewers must go through a mini ego death by placing themselves in the inspired minds of the artists, who themselves are out of their minds and only act as channels of creative spirit” (Grey 74). This quote reveals the creative pathway that artists go through to experience art spiritually. Also, when an artists is inspired, it is as if the artist is “possessed by some creative force, overtaken by a vision and driven to create” (Grey). By spirituality, artists can fully experience art’s true meaning, but this also can applied to anything. How do you express spirituality through inspiration?

Horror is a favorite genre to many people, especially my roommate. Horror is just so appealing to some people to the point of where they do not even get terrified, but only laugh at the scary scenes. Lately, national television is filled with horror shows and movies, such as The Walking Dead which consists of zombies and Insidious. These horror films are so gruesome; I still do not understand why it brings joy to some people. From some of the resources I have found, may explain why this happens.

From wisegeek.com, I found an article “Why Do People Like to Watch Scary Movies?” I figured, this was exactly what I was looking for to answer my question about why people like horror films so much. The most quote in the article that stuck out to me most argued that horror movies are appealing because they “represent the decay of society, show the value of staying within social norms, and allow people to feel fear within a controlled setting” (WiseGeek). What this means is that they’re saying that the decay of society proposition makes it seem like there is a dark side to the norms of society and the genre of horror depicts our dark side. The horror genre now compared to the horror back in Greek mythology and biblical times is considered modern. Back then, “Even the earliest societies had their “monsters” or stories of gods, men and beasts that committed unspeakable horrors” (Wise Geek). Most of horror movies show the benefits of staying within social norms because innocence will prevail. Overall, horror movies actually help us appreciate normality. Also, the part of which horror makes it enjoyable to people is because it has ‘controlled scare’. This is the same as riding a rollercoaster because it increases our heart rate and gets our adrenaline flowing. The people who enjoy this most is because they see that the fear comes fictional, meaning that there poses no threat to us.

The other source is from livescience.com and it is titled “Bloodlust or Bloodless? Horror Film Love Runs Deep” written by Stephanie Pappas. There is a theory in this article which relates to me so much because it because people are upset, but they’re busy anticipating when the moment horror scenes will be over. This is what always happens to me, because I cannot take the tension and suspense of the horror scenes because I wouldn’t know when they would start. But when I think the scary scene is over, it isn’t and the film catches me unaware! Also, this article tells us about thrills and chills that people experience. “High sensation-seekers enjoy morbid curiosity in general and horror movies in particular” (LiveScience). This means that high sensation seekers have a higher level of arousal when it comes to thrills. For those who have low levels of arousal, they tend to dislike getting chills. Usually youth and men are the ones who are high sensation seekers. Hence the people who enjoy horror movies that seek excitement and adventure are aware that the scenes and characters are fictional and are only watching a movie.

In comparision, these two articles were very similar because they both argued why people enjoyed watching horror films which also connects to “Why Horror?” by Noel Carroll. He states that “Monsters, are the natural subjects of curiosity” (Carroll) which relates the idea in WiseGeek about having a dark side of society. Both of the articles I found argued that people who love watching horror movies, know that everything is fictional and that they are only watching a movie so that there are no threats. For example, when I watch a scary movie, the movie constantly consists of questions to the audience to make them curious and wonder what’s going to happen next. This connects to Carroll’s saying about curiousity.

Click here for the link to the WiseGeek article and click here for the LiveScience article.

Sources:

Carroll, N. (2002). Why Horror?. In Neill, A. & Riley, A. (eds.) Arguing About Art: Contemporary Philosophical Debates (2nd ed., Chap. 17). New York, NY: Routledge.

Ellis-Christensen. (2013). Why Do People Like to Watch Scary Movies?. Retrieved on May 11,  2013 from http://www.wisegeek.org/why-do-people-like-to-watch-scary-movies.htm

Pappas, S. (2010). Bloodlust  of Bloodless? Horror Film Love Runs Deep. Retrieved on May 11, 2013 from http://www.livescience.com/8859-bloodlust-bloodless-horror-film-love-runs-deep.html

Within the first five minutes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there is a showing of non-diegetic, diegetic and mise en scene. I’m not much of a fan who likes horror movies or shows because I get scared really easily from the suspenseful music or by visual popups and sound effects that go with it (diegetic).

Mise en scene was presented in this episode while the girl was having a bad nightmare. The nightmare consisted of a dark scene where it was kind of hard to see until the vampire showed up and the picture quality cleared to see the scariness of the vampire. The little girl singing before the vampire showed up was a distraction, until the man appeared and scared viewers and the girl. This was a smart choice of the directors to put this sort of mise en scene in this episode because it was definitely a surprise.

Next was diegetic sounds which are sounds whose source is visible on the screen. In the same scene, the girl’s singing got louder and louder as the other girl came closer to her. This voice nonetheless sounded creepy like in other horror movies. The diegetic sounds from her voice gave such suspense. The little girl was just standing there, sweet and innocently so viewers would assume that something bad would happen at that point, thus giving off suspense.

Lastly, the non-diegetic sounds occurred when the vampire popped up out of nowhere. You would think that the boy behind her would just tell the girl that she is safe, but nope. The man turned into a vampire somehow and scares viewers who are watching this. Before the vampire showed up, there was such suspenseful music rising with a stronger tone as the scene progressed. It harmonized the little girl’s singing at the same time, building such suspense so viewers would not know when something bad happens. But once the vampire appeared, the music all of a sudden got scary and loud, the opposite of the suspenseful music.

Personal adornment is not the most important factor in a person, but it can represent a variety of different things to other people. The way I dress is comfortably, but fashionably that also suits my personality. I am pretty aware of fashion itself because I read fashion magazines and I am usually always up to date on fashion senses and fads. From looking at current styles that are “in”, I choose the ones that look the most comfortable and that fit my personality best. My personality makes sure that I am not too open, so that I do not show too much skin and expose myself. I like to keep things to myself and not share my entire life with everyone around me, unless I trust them enough. My parents have always told me respect my body, so that I do not choose the wrong type of clothing that would misinterpret my personality when others are trying to identify who I am exactly as a person. I make this choice of dressing comfortably and wearing clothes that do not show too much skin, because I still have my morals and I promised myself that I will never lose my dignity when I am wearing clothes or doing actions. I choose my attire everyday with pride and I would never regret wearing anything I didn’t want people to see.

There isn’t anything wrong with body piercings or tattoos, but my parents completely disapprove of both of them because they say “you’ll ruin your reputation as an Asian”.  My mother doesn’t let me get any more piercings other than my ears because she says that I’ll have too many holes in my body which is ugly. My best friend also convinced me not to get a belly piercing because she says that when I get pregnant, the hole will stretch and will look ugly. So that influenced my desire to get a body piercing. As for tattoos, I’m really debating whether or not to get a secret tattoo that I will hide from my parents for the rest of my life. My parents say that tattoo ink “dirties my skin” and makes my skin look dirty all the time. My parents don’t really understand the reason to get a tattoo, but I choose to because I could have a very important aspect/time/symbol tattooed into my skin that will stay forever. For example, I was thinking about having a koi fish tattoo because koi represents courage and strength.  I will have that symbol to always remind me to stay strong when things are hard or when I need to have enough courage to do something.

Over the years, I can certainly say that my adornment has changed greatly. When I was in middle school, I did not know how to dress to express, only to impress. During that time, I had always wanted those big branded clothing such as Hollister, Abercrombie & Fitch, just to fit in with the other girls. But then high school came and then I changed my looks. I started to wear make up on my face and comfortable clothing such as sweaters all the time to make myself feel good and look good. It was a way to make myself less insecure. Now college is here, and the weather is cold. My attire everyday only consists of stylish, but comfortable boots, sweaters/coats and beanies. These types of clothing were in style and were a few of the most comfortable attire that one could wear.

The community also sometimes influences my choices on what to wear. I look around campus while walking to classes and notice what people wear. That is how you can also find out what style you like in different people. I think to myself, “oh, that looks really comfortable” or “that’s a cute outfit” and I follow along with what my peers wear. But some of my friends go to parties and dress with minimal coverage on their skin. I know what is appropriate and what is not, so I choose not to copy what they wear, even if it is in style for parties. But mostly in Eugene, there are many different styles of adornment because most people I see wear clothes to represent their culture and value as a person. People’s attire can mainly be based on their personality, because people usually are representing what they love, such as their culture, sport, and fraternity/sorority. The other sections of the population that adorn themselves have piercings or tattoos. Overall, Eugene has such great diversity.